French President Emmanuel Macron is trying by all means to push for a renaissance of nuclear energy in Europe, including financial support. However, at the current EU summit, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, made it clear that nuclear energy in the Union is only promoted in very special cases.
“Nuclear power can play a role in our efforts to decarbonise the economy,” von der Leyen said on Thursday after the first day of the EU summit in Brussels. Highly advanced nuclear power technology can therefore be considered zero-emission and “access to some simplified rules and incentives” if used for strategic technologies such as solar cell production, battery production or hydrogen production. “The state-of-the-art nuclear energy is therefore suitable for certain areas, but not for all,” the postscript reads.
The European Commission does not respond to France’s request to equate nuclear energy with renewable energy. Already in the paper for a climate-friendly industrial transition presented by the Commission, the Commission only mentions “advanced nuclear power generation technologies with minimal waste from the fuel cycle, such as small modular reactors” as eligible.
Admittedly, this goes too far for opponents of nuclear energy such as Austria. But it falls short of French President Macron’s demands to classify nuclear power as renewable. Chancellor Karl Nehammer emphasized on Thursday that nuclear energy is not a future technology due to its dangerous nature and referred to the phasing out of nuclear energy in Austria in the 1970s. His Luxembourg counterpart, Xavier Bettel, also spoke out unequivocally against nuclear energy.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
